[c-nsp] SmartNET on Used Router?

[Brett Frankenberger]

On Sat, Aug 26, 2006 at 02:40:44AM -0700, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> 
>   A more serious question though is if you purchased the "Cisco Relicensing
> for Used Equipment" If you bought the 7507 router used, and you do
> not have this license, and it is not a hardware replacement for a
> 7507 that died which you did have a license on, then you are not
> legal to run any IOS on the router, even the IOS that was on there
> when you bought it, as well as any IOS that you can obtain by
> smartnet.

That might or mught not be true.  Cisco policy is that IOS licenses
cannot be transferred and that you have to pay relicensing if you buy
used hardware.  This has never, to me knowledge, been challanged in
court, and it's not at all clear that Cisco's view would prevail.

The current state of affairs is that most large customers take a pretty
conservative view with respect to software licenses, and they either
relicense what they buy or they buy new equipment.

AFAIK, Cisco has never sued anyone for failure to relicense.  My guess
is that they won't, because if they fight and lose, all the large
customers who choose to play it safe would have to recsondier in the
light of legal precedent striking down the reclicensing policy.  Cisco
likely won't take that risk.

     -- Brett